My contribution to a board
I would help directors examine the behaviour an employment system encourages. A grade rule can create artificial teams, a verification process can confuse an unavailable source with an adverse finding and a feedback dashboard can reveal more about employees than its designers intended. My contribution would be to connect those practical effects with the decision the board is being asked to make. I would not arrive with a standard HR programme to impose on management. The proposed company's work, relationships and obligations would determine which questions matter. I have no statutory directorships, so induction and experienced colleagues would be important to learning how to make that contribution within collective oversight. My fictional assessment record is one preparation step, not proof that every role or committee is suitable. I would want technical, financial and legal perspectives around the table, and I would preserve their boundaries while explaining the people consequences that might otherwise remain hidden inside a process description.
Judgement in practice
01Revising a framework I had helped approve
I had supported a grade system that made direct reports a prominent condition for progression. The 24-role review showed managers proposing teams for specialists whose work did not require a supervisory layer. We developed a distinct route with authorised technical leaders: fourteen specialist appointments, six genuine management routes and four development cases. The decision carried ₹68 lakh in annualised pay movement and ₹16 lakh of design work. For a board, the lesson is to ask what behaviour a rule encourages rather than assess it only by its stated purpose. I would also expect management to identify its own part in the problem. The revised route did not establish permanent readiness, eliminate every retention concern or confer technical insurance authority. Those limits were essential to a credible account of what the decision actually changed.
02Giving up detail to preserve responsible use of employee responses
I requested more feedback filters because I wanted managers to act on local concerns. Review showed that combining team, role, tenure and location could make respondents recognisable. We suppressed eighteen team reports with fewer than five responses and examined the remaining 28 for further inference risks, at a review cost of ₹22 lakh. I would ask a board to consider the report a manager can reconstruct, including knowledge outside the dashboard, rather than rely on the absence of names. Less detail has a cost because local action can become harder to specify. That cost should be acknowledged while providing appropriate routes for broader improvement and individual concerns. The result was a more restrained report, not a claim that privacy risk or employee unease had disappeared.
My first year on a board
I would start by learning how specialist work is organised and what the company's career and reward rules encourage managers to do. A selection of recent progression decisions, including unsuccessful cases, would help me understand whether the written framework matches its practical use. I would also examine how employee listening is designed: the promises made before participation, the reports released afterwards and the routes used for individual concerns. Through the chair and agreed induction arrangements, I would seek relevant management perspectives without becoming an alternative HR reporting line. I would want to understand the financial account behind the people agenda, including recurring commitments and unresolved transition costs. Committee participation would follow the applicable remit and eligibility review. Feedback from the chair would help me judge whether my questions improved the board's decisions or simply repeated the work of executives. Learning the business should make my intervention more selective, with fewer assumptions borrowed from my current employer.
Conflicts and their management
Lorqavi's industrial owner, growth-capital investor, recruitment providers, professional advisers and service partners could have connections with a proposed company. I would disclose relevant relationships and seek employer consent before receiving sensitive material. An appointment involving repeated decisions about my employer or a material employment-service relationship may not allow useful participation even where individual recusals appear possible. I would not carry employee files, private survey comments, candidate records or unpublished pay arrangements from one organisation to another. My absence of a personal shareholding does not remove interests arising from continuing employment. The review should consider independence, applicable limits, eligibility and the practical expectations of the committee role, with appropriate advice where needed. The provisional twenty-five-day allowance must also cover preparation, travel and unexpected demands alongside the CHRO calendar. If the central work of the proposed board would repeatedly place me in conflict, declining the role would be more useful than accepting a title with little room to contribute.
My independence statement
Continuing employment, ownership connections and commercial relationships must be reviewed for the proposed company. This demonstration does not establish independent status or appointment eligibility.
Committee contribution
Chair and member readiness| Capacity | Committees |
|---|
| Ready to join | Nomination and remuneration committee after appointment-specific eligibility and competence review · People or risk committee where specialist capability and employee-data practices fit the remit |
|---|
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Lorqavi General Assurance
People, organisation and employment-process reviews
January 2022–Present
Presents through the CEO as CHRO; no statutory seat, director's vote or committee membership.
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 25 days per year
- Current directorships
- 0
- Sectors
- Specialist services without a material conflict with Lorqavi · Services adjacent to insurance, only where relationships permit meaningful participation · Business services with substantial professional workforces
- Company type
- A company whose board wants practical scrutiny of specialist careers and employment systems alongside sector and financial expertise
- Company stage
- Revising its career structure, hiring processes or approach to employee listening
The seat I am pursuing
I would welcome a first non-executive role in a specialist service business where the board wants a careful examination of career structures, employment evidence or employee listening. The company should have complementary sector, legal and financial expertise rather than expect a people director to answer every question alone. A nomination and remuneration, people or risk committee could provide a relevant setting after the required review and induction; I do not offer prior committee-chair experience. I would want the nomination conversation to identify the actual decisions my perspective could improve and the relationships that could limit participation. The fictional record contains no statutory seats, June 2026 databank registration and a September proficiency pass. Those facts support a discussion of readiness without making appointment automatic. My aim would be to help directors understand what a people process asks employees and managers to do, then judge whether that behaviour serves the company and treats the evidence responsibly.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Proficiency assessment passed
Fictional IICA registration in June 2026 and proficiency assessment passed in September 2026; no exemption claimed. Applicable appointment and continuing requirements still need individual confirmation.
- Preparing people recommendations for directors since January 2022 without holding a statutory seat
- Studying the difference between board oversight of an employment system and executive decisions about an individual
- Completing fictional IICA preparation and assessment while reviewing the requirements of a first appointment